77. Exceptional Marketing with Sarah Noel Block

Russ

Well, I'm looking forward to talking to our guest today. Because I, I love marketing. I love learning about it and understanding more about it, because it helps me get more customers. And I want to do it well.

Dana

Yeah. And there's so much to know. It sounds like we'll be talking with an expert. today. We have Sarah Noel block. She's the owner of Tiny Marketing. Sarah, welcome.

Sarah

Thank you so much for having me on.

Dana

Tell us, I love the name, Tiny Marketing, it's cute and quaint and adorable. And I want to hear how it got started. And you know what made you want to start tiny marketing.

Sarah

The name came out of the fact that I was a one-person marketing department for a seven-company group. And I always thought to myself, I'm doing I'm doing tiny marketing, because I am able to build out effective and efficient systems and batching programs that enable me to be able to do all of the marketing for these seven companies with just me. So that's where Tiny Marketing came from, was being able to be tiny and still be able to do it all. And then the origin story for my business, I was side gigging building up my business for 10 years, before I got the guts to actually take it full time. And it was 2020, when I decided to, to take it full time, I had a big enough client list on the side to be able to make up my income. The company I was working for at the time, they said they would take me on, they would be a client of mine, that they would start a contract with me. And that made my monthly income even more with that. It made financial sense to go off on my own. And my kids were in virtual school because of COVID. With the flexibility, and then the money, it was a no brainer at the time.

Russ

It’s funny, because a lot of people had a lot of changes at that time, right. And this was an opportunity you'd already been building. I'm curious, were people looking for more ways to acquire their customers because of the disruption in the market?

Sarah

Yeah, I think it made it a lot easier. The timing of my, I'm going to call it my jump date, I had a jump date for when I was going to take it full time. Because I really focus a lot on digital marketing and being able to grab your audience online and build a relationship that way. And nobody was seeing anybody in person at the time. And a lot of these businesses that we're relying on networking events and relationship building, they were struggling big time, they didn't know how to pivot. My approach to digital marketing, specifically around content was very much needed at the time. It was actually super easy to be able to build up my client roster enough to be able to leave.

Russ

I'm curious because people who dive into marketing, and I, I like from when I started my business, I loved my marketing people, because I knew they were going to help me get, you know, make more money. If you've done any kind of research, any of our listeners, you know, they hear SEO, they hear pay per click, they hear these things, but they might not be as familiar with content marketing. Can you tell me a little bit about what that what that's about?

Sarah

Content marketing is basically being the teacher to your audience, being the guide. I focus a lot on creating educational content that teaches our audience, my client’s audience, how to solve their problems. So, we do a lot of listening. We listen to our customers and hear what problems that they're having, where they're struggling, what's taking up way too much of their time. And that's what we teach them about. It's a lot about, it's about listening and teaching and being the guide to help them get to a place where they want to be. And SEO is part of it too. SEO is the benefit of content marketing, and output.

Dana

When I think about making content for my business, it feels so big, you know, like it feels like such a big task. How can people who are in that space where, they work 30 to 40 hours in their business doing the work, make time for the content component.

Sarah

It really is big; I don't blame you for feeling like it's big. There's a lot of pieces that go along with content marketing, but with the right systems, you can make it work for you. Like I was saying earlier, I was a one-person marketing department. But I had seven bosses, I had seven Presidents talking to me about what their individual needs were. And I had to make that work. What I did was, I created batch sessions, I basically created my own little batching parties, where I would spend my time and focus on creating all the content for the entire month during that period. And I went so much faster, because your mind is in that place where you're, you're just rolling, you know exactly what you're talking about. And if you create one core piece of content, like, let's say this interview right now, there's so much you could do from it. Let's say you can commit to creating, like interviewing one expert a month, and you record that interview. So that content can be turned into a video on YouTube into micro videos, break it down into three-minute videos and clips, audiograms, social media email, it'll feed everything for the entire month. So, these little batching parties that I had, along with creating one core piece that can be repurposed is how I made it all work.

Dana

Did you identify your ideal client? Because I mean, everybody needs marketing, right? So I'm sure it's easy to fall into. I'll help anybody. But do you have a certain market that you serve?

Sarah

When, in my corporate life, I was working a lot with real estate investing businesses, well, they served real estate investors was served landlords, and building materials and facility services companies. That was exclusively who I worked with. So basically, anything having to do with a building is who I work with, I work with betta bees that serve buildings, whether it's buying, selling, managing, putting building materials in there or keeping them up through facility services.

Russ

How did you do when you move forward on your own? Do you stay within that niche? And I want to talk more about those batching parties? Because it seems like I would need a lot of content, but you're saying I could probably just do some really good content and break it up into a bunch of pieces. Yeah. So, I want to know more than more about that, too.

Sarah

Yeah. So, I, I do I stay within the B2B niche. That is for sure. Always. And I specialize in those industries. The majority of my clients come in from those industries. It's easier for both of us, it's easier for me to know who I'm talking to, and how I can serve you if I know exactly who you are, who your audience is, who you're selling to, and what your problems are. I think having a niche is incredibly important to be able to succeed and having your business. And I end up really preferring all of those clients that are in this niche. Sometimes I'll take a B2B that's outside of it, I'm like, I should have just stuck to my niche. And then as far as the batching parties, you don't have to create a whole bunch of brand new, let's call it net new content all the time. Instead, it's not regurgitating what you've already created. And when you start from a core piece of content, it's inspired by it. You have that interview, you talked about certain talking points, you can write blog posts based off of those different talking points, there's so much you can do with it. That's not just saying the same thing over and over again, that it also keeps you within your content themes.

Russ

I'm wondering, if I started out, what do you recommend, like say, with a five to ten minute video, and then breaking that up? Like, we do, like say, I'm going to talk about mold remediation in our process, let's just say because that's what we do. So that would be boring for five to 10 minutes for most people that weren't me, I get it.

Sarah

So someone who finds it interesting because they're purchasing your service.

Russ

Right? So I'm thinking that maybe I talked about within that video that I can pull out a bunch of different things about you know, what causes mold are the top three things that cause mold somewhere else and I can start using those little 30 to 40 sets Can clips and social media and hitting it on Instagram and different things like that. So that's what you're saying. But it sounds like it would take some expertise to to write the overall content. So that I would know that there are pieces to take out.

Sarah

Yeah, you know what you have to do the upfront work. I create a creative brief before every interview, and I break it down into three learning points for every interview that I have, because I interview people weekly, too. And I have sections of them out into learning points. And we do a little freewheeling conversation. But we always hit those learning points. So, I know I can break it up into at least those three things. So creative briefs, save you so much time, that little bit of upfront work.

Dana

What are some systems that can help streamline this, like, I get into analysis paralysis, where I, you know, we do these podcasts and rest, and I will take notes as we podcasts, and we turn them into quotes? But then it's like, where do we go from there? You know, so are there any systems aside from batching, that really helped to streamline the content process?

Sarah

I would say templating your process. So I, for example, use teamwork for my project management. And then every interview that I have, I have a template of all the things that I want to do for that interview, how I can break it up into and repurpose it in different ways. And the template already has any Freelancer that's assigned to that project attached to it, as soon as it's created with due dates. It saves me about I calculated it, it saves me about five hours a week, being able to have these templates. And then the Freelancer automatically knows, this is this is my assignment, here are the assets, I just attach them to, to the project in teamwork. And they know exactly what they need to do. Because while they're doing it regularly, they know how to work with me. And the assets. And due dates are all attached to that project.

Dana

It sounds like even outside of just content marketing that you have a lot of good SOPs within tiny marketing and the way that you do business talk, talk to us a little bit about us. Yeah, how did that all come to be? You know, how did you build the structure into tiny marketing?

Sarah

It came to be back in my corporate days. It started off with me sitting in my cubicle panicking because I couldn't keep track of several different businesses and everything that they needed. So, it started off with me just like shaking back and forth and panicking. And then it moved on to me actually being productive and figuring out a solution to my problem. So, I started off way back then when I was working with seven companies creating processes using Trello at the time and building them out. And then I moved on to another company where I was managing a team. And I took over all of the operations of the marketing. So that's when I really got into it and started looking at, like different methodologies around project management. And how I can work within like an in house agency will say, along with extensions of our team using freelancers, and how we can make all have that seamless. So, it started, it started then, and I automatically built those processes into my business because it worked really well in house.

Russ

My business coach made me read a book, it's called They Ask, You Answer, and it's about content marketing. One of the things that they had mentioned was having your whole team, right content marketing, your sales team, your production team, because they all have a different perspective on the business. And they all have a different, you know, their view on it is very different. So, they can add very important details to it. And you know, they all have different contact with the customer as well. So, they all hear different questions. I mean, what do you think about that,

Sarah

I actually have a client who does something similar to that. There's a good process to go along with that. Because if you let everybody write content, you don't have consistency in voice, the writing is not going to sound the same. And you're going to be talking about a lot of like a huge variety of things that don't make sense. When you are doing content marketing, you want to stick to your themes, stick to your lanes, pick four themes to stay within. So how I would do it. And I think that's a great idea, but how I would do it is I would have a content strategist planning it out with those subject matter experts first, and helping outline those in the creative, brief process. Then handing them off to them. And then having a managing editor, look at the final piece, making sure it fits the brand voice, it's edited, it's cohesive with the other pieces and then publish it. There's a way to make it work.

Russ

So one of the things that they had used in the book, as an example was an appliance store in the Boston Market, that they get a ton of traffic on their website from all over the world, in fact, and they write reviews on appliances, and how often they need to be repaired, what lasts longer, and all these things in comparison, and they write these articles as content marketing, and it drives traffic to their page. And they own their entire local market. And so, I want to let our listeners know that there's a way to do it for your business. They just sell appliances, but they write and they do some repair work as well. But you know, what appliances don't break down and they write all these different articles that people are looking for, like, I do a lot of research before I buy stuff. And the same way. So I would read all of those articles for sure. Yeah. So, tell me about, you know, how, what are some ways that we could do that in a different industry? I mean, you're doing B2B, but, you know, within property, you know, what are some of the things that you know, people would do to help drive that traffic?

Sarah

Yeah. So I mean, no matter who you're who your audience is, B2B, they're just people. They're just people going to Google just like everybody else. I mean, you talked about SEO earlier, SEO was a huge factor in content marketing, and a huge benefit. All of these people who are working in these VPS, are going to Google and researching the same problems that they're having. They're always going to be doing that research. And if you don't have content marketing, they're going to find the other guy, the one who is actually working on it. With properties a lot of the time, it's figuring out how to be more sustainable. It's time management, if you have a small team, and there's ton of different things to do for the facilities, or if you have multiple buildings, how to make that work. automations. That's a lot of the time what properties are looking for, but I mean, don't take my word for it, use things like Buzzsumo, Social Sistening, and Spark Toro to see what people are talking about. And actually listen to them. And then you write it just like that books that if you listen to your audience, and then you help them solve their problems.

Dana

When businesses start to do content marketing, is there an awareness that they need to have about like current content versus evergreen content? So, I work in the HR consulting realm. And a lot of my stuff is related to current events around Labor and Employment Law, which will only in my mind last so long while you're writing? Do you have to have a healthy balance of like stuff? That's current versus stuff that's kind of big picture that will continue on.

Sarah

Yes, definitely the current staff that will get you quickly, quick clicks, it will get you traffic immediately, because it's stuff people are searching for right now. And it'll get you a lot of backlinks. So it's perfect and make sense to do that. But evergreen is what lasts, I'll get clients that see an article I wrote five years ago. And it's because it's evergreen content, I try and do this as my own rule. But I try and do about 75% evergreen content, because it lasts so long. And about 25% current, this is of the moment content that will get me the quick, the quick clicks the engagement, because people want to know what's happening today.

Russ

And are we looking to just drive people to our website? And if our website is where we're driving people, how are we closing them? Like, is that something else that you help us with?

Sarah

Yeah, that is the goal is to get them to your website. But I would say the first and foremost goal of content marketing is that Know, Like, Trust factor, getting these people to know that you even exist in the first place. And that happens through that SEO and through that current content that we were just talking about, like trends that are happening right now. And then like do they actually want to work with you using like having that brand voice allows you to have that attract and repeal? So you're attracting the right people and you're repelling the wrong people? And then trust. I gosh, I can't remember the stat anymore, but I think it was 75% of the sales process happens before they ever talk to a salesperson. And it's happening through content marketing. Building trust through educating them is essential to get them to that sales point. And then once you get them to the website that's bottom of the funnel content, then you want to make sure that you have structured your website in a way that it's super easy to buy from you, and you want to take away any friction, they need to know exactly what the process is to work with you. And you need to be able to try and capture those leads. So having a lead gen embedded within those content pieces, whether it's a podcast or video blog, you can still embed that lead gen in there, that's a way to be able to move them into that nurture phase that eventually will convert them to a sale.

Russ

I know that I mean, I've talked about a lot of the things that I've learned in my process. And you know, one of the things that I hear is, this sounds like a lot. This sounds like a lot of responsibility, right? And I want to encourage listeners, like you make that video, there are transcription services to that you can use Yeah, and automatically turn it into a blog. And you don't even have to rewrite it because it just takes your audio and turns it into might take a little bit of doctoring up to clean it up, but doesn't matter because it won't be anything. It won't be perfect, right. But it does use a conversational tone, which we know people search in most of the time, because they're always like, who's a great content marketer in my area. And that's how they search. So it can be conversational. So that helps. But what are some of the things like I know it, I'm still not doing most of these things? Okay, it's on my list. And I, you know, I've got to do it, what are some things that we can do to start taking some tiny steps to do some big marketing, I know, it's tiny marketing.

Sarah

I mean, that's the idea behind it, right? The tiniest step that you can take is just committing to creating, like commit to a schedule, and one piece of content that you're willing to commit to, that's it. Even if you were just to commit to that one interview, like we talked about earlier, once a month, that is better than nothing committing to doing that interview and posting it on YouTube, and then putting a show notes page on your website, that's good enough, that's enough to be able to write an email to your audience, stay in front of them, write some social media based off of that interview, it's a great place to start, and it's not overwhelming. I would start there. And then as you were saying, there's automation, and there's AI actions, too. If you were to take that transcript, you could break it up into an outline, and then handed off to a managing editor or a Content Manager and have them turn it into a fully formed blog post. Because as it is, is not going to be super appealing. And it's not going to spit out in a format that people will want to read, you need to be really strategic about the storytelling format of it, that will keep people you know, open the loop with a hook, close the loop with a call to action, it's not going to come out that way. But if you bring in someone who can clean it up, in the end, it's going to cost a lot less than outsourcing it all together. And it will also produce exactly what you're trying to produce. And that's content that will educate your audience. What if you're a horrible writer? You can be a horrible writer if you have a good editor. What is it? Ernest Hemingway, I think it was it said the first I don't know, can I swear on this show? He says the first draft is always shit. So don't worry, you can write badly. And as long as you can edit better. So, write that first draft. It can be horrible. It's fine. As long as either you or a fractional Managing Editor can make it good. Every first draft is meh,

Dana

It's the idea that done is better than perfect. Yeah, always get. You could always get to perfect.

Sarah

Yes. I mean, my master's is in writing. And the first draft I'm always like, that could be better. So, first draft though.

Russ

So, tell me this, because when it comes down to it, this is hopefully driving revenue. And hopefully profits. So, I mean, that down to brass tacks, how is this going to help me bring in more customers and make more money because I have to justify taking the time and expense in some ways, because I'm going to have to probably hire some people to assist me even if it's, you know, just an editor. But it gets down to how is this going to increase my bottom line? I mean, that's really the key, right? That's what business owners want to know.

Sarah

Yeah, you need to be able to set up that tracking and tagging, to know that it's coming in. And so just so you know, content marketing takes a hot minute to be able to add up and start building revenue. But at the point, I'm two years into full time, and within the first year, all of my leads were inbound. And it was all through content marketing. And my clients are seeing the same thing. But you're not going to know that until you set up your systems. Make sure any links that you have in your content, have a tracking URL, and you could just go to a free source like Google URL tracking, campaign tracker, that's what it's called. And it'll put in a little code. On Google Analytics, you can see exactly where your where your traffic is coming from, and tracked, to see how people are finding you through your website. So, make sure your form has “How did you find me?”, in case they might have read an article that you had published, and then went directly to your website, so you're not going to be able to track that. Make sure that to try and capture that in the form? And then look at your acquisition and Google Analytics. How are they getting to your website? Is it referral traffic? Is it Google search? Is it email? Is it social media, all of that is content, the direct ones, those are, those are Fe Those are, those are the ones you try and capture in the form. A lot of times people will see an article of mine. And then they're like, whom they should reach out to Sarah. And they'll go to my website directly after that. So, it's not trackable, but that form will help.

Dana

Is it fair to say that, when it comes to content, like you have to have an awareness of where you're putting the content before you make it?

Sarah

Yes, distribution, I would say is the biggest part of content marketing. So, I would put repurposing in that distribution bucket. That's part of your distribution process, because you're creating emails from it, you're creating social media posts. But the way you format all of your content matters based on the distribution. For example, if you're creating a video like this, where it's like a YouTube's type orientation, that it won't work so great for a real or a TikTok, you can, you can tweak it a little bit using Canva, or other tools to be able to make it work for that, like super micro 22nd content. And that'll do the job for it. But repurposing it in a way where you take those talking points, and you created your own reel from it using the correct orientation, that matters. All your distribution channels are a little bit different. So, tweak accordingly.

Russ

And I think another important note that I want to pull out that I heard you say, and I want our listeners to hear is that it does take time, you know, I don't want people thinking, Well, hey, I wrote three blog posts, how come my phone's not blowing up. And it's kind of like SEO, right? It takes time. And if you what are your competitors is five years ahead of you, and they don't take their foot off the gas, they're going to stay five years ahead of you. So, you have to have that mentality, I'm going to start now. And I'm going to put my pedal to the floor. And I'm going to get ahead of my competition. And I'm going to stay ahead of them because this is just an ongoing, continuous process. And it's important.

Sarah

Stay focused on the goal, it will work, it will work. And if you want to fast track it, you can fast track it in a way, as you're starting to create your content in the first place. You can get placements in different media, so you're borrowing other people's audiences, you can get partnerships, let's say your service company, and there's a product company that works with the same audience as you but they're not obviously a direct competitor, work with them on content. So, you guys are sharing each other's audiences. And that will really amp up the growth faster. That's, that's how I started I was doing a lot of content marketing, but I partnered with a lot of people to get in front of the audience to build quickly.

Dana

There's so much value here and I feel like it can be so like I'm, every time we talk to someone that does marketing or SEO or content. I'm like, I'm going to do it. And then I don't do. So, you have a podcast and then you also do some training right to help people kind of tackle this topic.

Sarah

Yes. You can find my podcast, Tiny Marketing everywhere. It's in video and audio format. So literally everywhere. It's all the podcast channel. goals and but also YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, we share it out as a live stream show. And then yes, we I host a quarterly workshop with companies to help them create their quarterly content plan. We look at what campaigns are happening, what services or products do you really want to push this year, or this quarter, and I help them build out their plan, create the creative briefs for them. So, it's super easy to just get off and running. And then, you know, we could even look into Hey, how can you create this and then repurpose it to save yourself even more time?

Dana

So, you'll work directly with a company, right? Not necessarily just an individual or, you know, a solopreneur, you'll go in and help a company get their strategy kind of aligned, right?

Sarah

Yes, I do. And I mean, for the workshops, I do work with solopreneurs, too.

Russ

What are some of the things that people could look forward to and one of those quarterly skills, I imagine it's part of your funnel as well. And I think the important part, and this is an important thing to remember, when you're recruiting content marketing, it's okay to give away some information about your business and how you do your product and service. Because people want to learn, like you said, know, like, and trust, right? I can teach people how to do mold remediation, they're still not going to want to do it themselves. They're going to be like, that's just the guy I want to hire. Yeah, look how good he does.

Sarah

Yeah. And he knows so much about mold remediation, is it automatically builds trust, even if you just you know, you're teaching me about it?

Russ

So, what can we look forward to in some of those quarterly meetings with you doing marketing?

Sarah

Well, with those quarterly workshops, you are ready to get going and have your content done. So, you get my brain, you, we go into your business, and we build out like a content tree for the quarter of exactly what you should be creating that quarter. And we'll go into briefs for each one, they're completely outlined, I'll tell you what resources you need to be able to complete it. I'll even give you an SEO and a distribution checklist as part of it, so you know exactly how to make it work for you.

Dana

I think you bring up a good point, too, that like there's got to be thought behind your content. Meaning like there's a place and a purpose for point in time social media, but the true content and that relation, relationship building is something that needs to be like prepped and planned for and kind of thought about from big picture perspective, right?

Sarah

Yeah. As you start, like when you're doing your content planning, there's going to be a lot of lessening, that's happening, you might want to survey your customers around the same time find out what questions they're asking, you want to do some social listening, where you're, you're doing a little sleuthing on Twitter and LinkedIn, to see what people are talking about. And there's tons of tools out here that will help you with that, too. Like I was mentioning earlier, Spark toe or Toro, I love that one. You could like look up one of your customers, LinkedIn profiles, for example, and see what they talk about and people similar to them talk about. So that goes along with it listening and finding out what they're talking about what questions they have. And then you can start looking at that, that you know, your LinkedIn, your Twitter, your social media content, and start answering those questions and little micro pieces of content. And then it becomes a lot more strategic and you're not just throwing out whatever your thought is at that moment. It's there's strategy behind it. And it goes along with that. You know what your goals are for that quarter?

Russ

So it's not bad enough, I have to have a business plan I have I have the marketing plan to

Sarah

Yes, but they're so aligned.

Russ

Well, they better be that's for sure. What are some other things that we need to learn about content marketing from you and some of the things that you know, I want people to walk away with today going, oh, yeah, no, I totally need to do this.

Sarah

That content marketing is marketing. There is no marketing without content. It's it feeds everything else. So without truly listening to your customers, knowing what they need from you, and being able to communicate answers for that. You aren't marketing, you're just blasting, you're blasting out information about your business you're promoting, that's it's all about educating and adding value for them and building that trust that trusted relationship with them.

Russ

I think a great visual there is, you know, taking a bow and arrow and just firing it downrange and hoping it hits what you have to be aiming at something.

Sarah

I mean that that's like marketing without the need to it's doing the same thing just blasting out a conversation without having a specific customer or customer avatar that you're actually talking to. It doesn't work. You need a specific person.

Russ

Yeah. If you don't know what you're aiming at, you can't hit it. Know,

Sarah

Exactly.

Sarah

Let's not leave it to chance.

Russ

No, let's not. I think our businesses and our employees and our families are all way too important to leave something like this to chance. So where are where can people find you Sarah? Because I think people are going to want to find you.

Sarah

They can find me anywhere with my name, Sarah Noel Block. That's my website. That's what I am on all social media, Sarah Noah block. And then my show is Tiny Marketing. So, you can listen to me or watch me? Wherever, wherever you are you to podcasts, everything.

Russ

I think that's fantastic. And we're going to list all those things in the show notes as well. I think we'll share I think you said you had an eBook as well. And we'll share some links to your quarterly workshops. We, we need to be doing this folks. If you have a small business, if you have a big business, you have to invest in content marketing. This is this is how people are going to find you. And as Sarah said, they're going to know like and trust you because you've taken the time to put that plan together and make it all work. It's not personal. It's just business.